Moshe Idel-Johannes Reuchlin : Kabbalah Pythagorean Philosophy and Modern Scholarship.

JOHANNES REUCHLIN: KABBALAH, PYTHAGOREANPHILOSOPHY AND MODERN SCHOLARSHIPM

OSHE

I

DEL

1. Johannes Reuchlin as a Reborn Pythagoras

Various philosophies left their imprint on the different forms of Kabbalah. Theimpact of Neoplatonism

1

and Neoaristotelianism

2

is best known, though some tra-ces of the impact of Stoicism

3

and Atomism

4

can also be discern in the vast Kabbal-istic literature. Pythagorean philosophy is perhaps the third in its importance, fromthe point of view of the themes it impacted on Kabbalah.

5

Though there are some

1. This is a point that recurs in Gershom Scholem,

Origins of the Kabbalah

, tr. A. Arkush, ed.R.Z.J. Werblowsky, (JPS, Philadelphia, and Princeton University Press, Princeton 1987). Seealso M. Idel, "Jewish Kabbalah and Platonism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance," in ed.Lenn E. Goodman,

Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought

(SUNY Press, Albany, 1992), pp. 319-352.2. M. Idel,."Abulafia's Secrets of the

Guide;

a Linguistic Turn,"

Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale,

vol. 4 (1998) 495-528, "Maimonides' "

Guide of the Perplexed"

and the Kabbalah,"

Jewish History

18,2-3 (2004), pp. 197-226, and Elliot R. Wolfson,

Abraham Abulafia: Hermeneutics, Theosophy,and Theurgy

(Cherub Press, Los Angeles, 2000).3. See M. Idel,

Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah

(SUNY Press, Albany, 1988), p. 113.4. Scholem,

Origins of the Kabbalah

, p. 259, and M. Idel, "Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah inEarly 17th Century,"

Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century

, eds. Isadore Twersky - BernardD. Septimus, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1987), pp. 137-200.5. For the relatively limited availability of Pythagorean themes in Arabic in the High Middle Agessee Franz Rosenthal, "Some Pythagorean Documents Transmitted in Arabic,",

Orientalia

(NS)10 (1941), pp. 104–115, 383–95; F. Rosenthal,

The Classical Heritage in Islam

(Routledge,

31

examples of mentioning Pythagoras in medieval Jewish literature, this is a rare phe-nomenon.

6

However, in the ambiance of the Renaissance impulse to restore ancient formsof knowledge that was so strong, this attitude has nothing especially bizarre. This is what happened in the case of Reuchlin, who proposed to bring back to the Italiansoil the oldest of its autochthon philosophy: Pythagoreanism. This sort of philoso-phy which indeed flourished in Southern Italy in antiquity but disappeared after- wards was not only one of the oldest, since this is the case, according to some

Vitae of Pythagoras

, also of Thales. Unlike most of the other philosophies Pythagoras en- joyed a special character: he studies in the Orient, with Phoenitians, Egyptians andBabylonians, and brought their knowledge to Greece and then to Italy. However,already according to some late antiquity testimonies, the Phoenitians included alsothe Jews, and we know from Iamblichus'

Vita

that he was imagined to have visitedthe mount Carmel before leaving for his long sojourn in Egypt.

7

This type of testi-monies, known to the Renaissance authors since the printing of Eusebius of Caesa-rea and Clements of Alexandria, who capitalized on the lost histories of AlexanderPolyhistor, who drew from the lost history of the Alexandrine Jewish historian Ar-tapanus, and of Marsilio Ficino's translations, were backed by older views, somementioned above, who contended direct contact between the philosopher fromSamos and the Jews. Thus, Pythagoras was not only the divine man, adored by some many ancient Greeks and Italians, but in fact the first who proposed a syn-

London, 1975), p. 40; and D.J. O'Meara,

Pythagoras Revived

(Oxford University Press, Oxford,1989), pp. 230–232. On Nemesius of Emessa, John of Damascus and Shahrastani, who men-tioned Pythagoras, see Harry A. Wolfson,

Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion

, eds.,Isadore Twersky & George H. Williams (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1973), vol. 1, p.357 and also Sa‘id al-Andalusi,

Tabaqat al-umam

, tr. G. Blachere (Paris, 1935), pp. 57–62. Onthe Pythagorean

Golden Verses

translated from Arabic in Hebrew see Martin Plessner, "TheTranslation in Arabic and Hebrew of the Golden Verses of Pythagoras,",

Eshkoloth

vol. 4(1962), p. 58 (Hebrew)..6.

On Pythagoreanism and Kabbalah see M. Idel,

Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism,

(Continuum,London, New York, 2007), pp. 315-318, and my introduction to Johann Reuchlin,

On the Art of the Kabbalah, De Arte Cabalistica,

trs. M & S. Goodman, (The Nebraska University Press,Lincoln and London, 1993), pp. XI-XV. On Pythagoras in Renaissance Jewish sources see theconception that Pythagoras discovered music in Yehudah Moscato's

Nefuzot Yehudah,

Sermon I,[cf. Israel Adler,

Hebrew Annotated Manuscript Sources up to circa 1840

,

Repertoire International de Sources Musicales,

(G. Henle Verlag, 1989), p. 224] and Samuel Archevolti's

`Arugat ha-Bosem

, fol. 118a, [cf. Adler,

RISM,

p. 97], Abraham Portaleone,

Shiltei Gibborim

, [cf. Adler,

RISM,

p. 256], Joseph Solomon del Medigo

, Sefer ’Elim

, [cf. Adler,

RISM

, pp. 119-120]. Seealso R. Shelomo ibn Verga,

Sefer Shevet Yehudah

, ed. I. Baer, (Jerusalem, 1957), p. 1587. Pars. 13-15, pp. 41-43.

32

thesis between the Greek philosophy he knew so well before his journey to the East- taken because of the alleged advice of Thales - and the variety of Eastern sorts of wisdom. In short, Pythagoras was the first who brought to the Greeks and Italiansthe eastern knowledge, religious wisdom and science altogether

.

However, after the destruction of the Pythagorean school in Italy this knowl-edge was relatively forgotten. So, at least we learn from one of the most importantbiographers of Pythagoras, Iamblichus of Chalcis, himself a Syrian figure like Py-thagoras

"invoking the gods as leaders, and enthrusting ourselves and our discourse tothem, let us follow wherever they lead, in no way discouraged by the long time this philosophical school has been neglected, concealed by outlandish teachings and secret codes [symbola.] obscured by numerous false and spurious treatises,and entangled in many other similar difficulties."

8

Iamblichus wrote his book as an introduction to a large multivoluminous trea-tise on Pythagoreanism, which he apparently never finished in its entirety. As weknow such a Pythagorean reform never took place in a pure manner because Neo-platonism, though inspired from time to time by Pythagorean themes, succeededand Iamblichus was in fact one of those who had a share in this success. However,his attempt to bring back Pythagoras's philosophy is of a certain importance forour subsequent discussions. This may be also the case with the other figure thatdrew from Neo-Pythagorean sources, and even save some pieces of Iamblichus'sbook on Pythagoreanism from oblivion, the Byzantine 11th century scholar Mi-chael Psellus.

9

We may summarize the different surges of Pythagoreanism in antiq-uity and Middle Ages, as strongly connected to an earlier

floruit

of some forms of Platonism. This is also the case in the Renaissance. After Ficino's introduction of the various forms of Platonism and Neoplatonism, the Pythagorean elements that were components of these literatures, gelled as a theory that contends to stand foritself, as Reuchlin would assume.However, it is only at the beginning of the 16th century that a more explicit ap-proach to this Greek philosopher as a student of the Kabbalists emerged in a writ-ing of a Christian author Johann Reuchlin. Already in his first Kabbalistic writing,

De verbo mirifico

, printed in 1494, two main Kabbalistic topics had been presentedas similar to two Pythagorean topics: the Tetragrammaton which corresponds,

8. Iamblichus,

On the Pythagorean Life

, tr. Gillian Clark, (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool,1989), p. 31

.

9. See O'Meara,

Pythagoras Revived,

pp. 53

-

85.